The technique currently used in order to cope with the increasing demand for areas in harbors is to provide docks by obtaining from the sea the surfaces required for handling goods in harbors.
This technique consists in filling the seabed with rocks or other material up to sea level or in building a supporting structure of the so-called type with “submerged caissons”, to be filled with inert material or the like, and in then forming an upper quay for handling goods.
This technique is not free from drawbacks, including the fact that it fills seabeds that lie increasingly further from the coast and are in practice increasingly deeper, with the consequence that the times and costs for building the structures rise considerably and the marine environment is increasingly compromised, triggering the protests of the populations that reside along the coast and leading to more critical environmental impact assessments.